The adventures of Gary and Carolyn living aboard and continuously cruising the uk canals and rivers on narrowboat Inca

Sunday, 7 May 2017

A tight fit

After a couple of nights moored in Huddersfield and with the pleasure of hook up electric we pulled ropes through rings at 07.50 and headed under this lift bridge. It’s another first for us as all the bridges we have previously done have been swing or lift on one side . We have never seen one like this before where the whole bridge lifts up . Luckily it was electric so it just meant Carolyn pressing a few buttons. This is where we leave the Huddersfield narrow canal and join the broad canal.

We have now reached the first lock on the Huddersfield Broad canal . There are a total of nine broad locks before we get to the junction of The Calder and Hebble Navigation . Although these are broad locks they are only meant for boats that are 57 feet 6 inches long and with Inca being 59 feet long it’s going to be a bit of a tight squeeze.

As we fill the lock we can see The John Smith Stadium behind us which is the home of Huddersfield town FC .

We need to position our bow in the corner of the bottom gates and our stern in the middle below the top gates and then trying to avoid the cill as the lock empties.We have removed our front and rear buttons (fenders) to reduce our length ,but even so we have to go in to and descend the lock diagonally.

For this first lock of the nine on The Huddersfield Broad we only opened one gate paddle and let the lock empty very slowly. In the end it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and by the second lock down I found that if I wedged the bow in the corner just as I could see the cill we would be OK. I did get a bit wet though on a few of the leaky locks.

Two and a half hours later and we left The Huddersfield broad and joined The Calder and Hebble Navigation .Dropping down from the canal Carolyn mentioned that this looked like a river and not a canal which of course it is . I love rivers and Carolyn isn’t so keen but as I said as long as it’s not in flood we will be fine.

Turning right and heading towards Wakefield.

Some of the locks on this section look like they need the odd repair or three . I wouldn’t like to get hung up on this.

I like to get close to the weirs on rivers as we pass them so that I can frighten Carolyn a little bit. Needless to say she is not at all impressed and calls me some horrible names…

Only a 4 hour cruise today and we picked up this mooring in Mirfield next to where they are building a new larger Lidl which will be handy for passing boaters. Tomorrow and it should be a good 5 hour cruise on this most enjoyable river to Wakefield.